rovence typically conjures up images of rolling green hills, endless rows of lavender fields and honey-stone hilltop villages, but in reality this area is much wilder than you might think. Its setting lies in the south-eastern corner of France, better known as the Provence-Alpes Côte d'Azure region, which is one of the coun try's most diverse areas: a place where you can be rubbing shoulders with the glitterati in Cannes one day and scaling limestone peaks or skiing in the mountains the next. The Alpes-deHaute-Provence department is where this landscape shifts up a gear, revealing an increasingly steep terrain until it meets the jagged band of snowy summits that make up the southernmost portion of the French Alps. This topography is heaven for adventurers, with all kinds of
